after you distribute those 41 states, that leaves us with the nine we've been talking about: nevada, colorado, iowa, wisconsin, iowa, new hampshire, virginia, north carolina and florida. that's where the competition will be tonight because those states it's just too close and so now we wait. >> pelley: john, thank you. the biggest of those battleground states are florida, ohio, and virginia. and that is where the candidates have been spending a lot of time since the republican convention. the obama-biden ticket in blue and the romney-ryan ticket in those red dots you see there. we have correspondents in all three of those states tonight and first dean reynolds is in the birthplace of seven american presidents, the state of ohio. dean? >> reporter: good evening, scott, from the statehouse in columbus. you know, ohio started voting early, five weeks ago and 1,787,000 people took advantage of that opportunity, the highest number in the state's history. we noticed today as well that a lot of people are casting provisional ballots, they go to people whose address doesn't match their regis